Three friends and I are headed to London over the Thanksgiving holiday. We are on budgets and were hoping for some suggestions on reasonable but enjoyable restaurants. We wanted to do a very traditional UK dinner on Thanksgiving since all of us will be away from our families. Any ideas would be most appreciated. Please include avg prices. Also we all love our vino and a pint of ale...Thanks, Barb

My suggestion for Thanksgiving is Maggie Jones near Kensington Gardens. It's a very traditional and rustic place inside with roasts, traditional British food, and just plain great atmosphere. You can do a three course meal there for under 20 pounds -- including wonderful sticky toffee pudding or spotted dick.<BR>A search here can give you many suggestions, in fact I think there was an identical thread just in the last couple of days on the same topic, so just scroll down through the first couple of hundred posts and you'll find lots of suggestions.<BR>The short list: Wagamama's, Belgo (especially early evening where you pay the time for the meal (5 and a half pounds at 5:30), pret and manger, and pubs!!!

Wagamama is a very good inexpensive place to eat. Others include (hopefully, they're still around):<BR>Food for Thought (vegetarian in Covent Garden), Patio on Goldhawk Road serves a 3 course meal for about 10 pounds that includes a Polish vodka, Chelsea Kitchen on King's Road, Pizza Express, Cafe in the Crypt at St. Martin in the Fields Church. I haven't been to this restaurant but I've been told that Porters English Restaurant and Bar is a good budget place for traditional English food. Pubs are a great way to experience the culture of this wonderful city especially if you venture out of the center of the town. Anyway, there are so many to choose from no matter where you are.<BR>

Thanksgiving is not a British holiday (any more then Boxing Day is one here) hence you are not going to find a traditional UK dinner on that day. It's a Thursday, a regular work day in the UK.

XXX you may be the dunce...there is a "traditional" UK dinner of roast, potatos, etc. I believe it is usually served on Sunday nights and has nothing to do with Thanksgiving in the US. That said, Barb, I'd suggest checking out three travel books from the Library and if you see someplace well recommended in 2 out of 3, consider it. Some of the best cheap eats in London are at Indian restaurants. You might try Oriel, a bistro-type place a couple doors down from the Sloane Square tube stop. They have several rooms, a reasonable (not cheap but reasonable) menu, and well priced wine and beer/ale. Per person, expect to spend about $30 and you should be OK.

oops - that reads as if Oriel is an Indian restaurant -- it isn't. You may want to make reservations, but on a Thursday night you should be OK.

Pardon me for speaking on behalf of Barb, but I really do think she means that she and her friends would like to eat a dinner that is traditional to the culture of England and not the US. It doesn't sound as if she expects to see those cardboard and crepe paper turkey and pilgrim decorations there on that day as we do here in the US.

I know that roast beef, roasted potatos, veggies & Yorkshire pudding is considered to be a tradition Sunday meal in many areas of the UK (I've had it myself several times) however I took Barb to mean she was looking for a traditional dinner on Thanksgiving Day and since Thanksgiving Day is not observed in Britain and it is a Thurs. (a regular work day, not a weekend) she is going to be hard pressed to find a traditional meal ... unless you go for fish & chips

We had a very nice lunch in the restaurant upstairs at the Red Lion Pub on Parliament Street near Westminster Abbey and the Cabinet War Roms for under 10 pounds each. We also had two lovely dinners at the Duke of York (again, upstairs) near Victoria Station. Sorry, I don't remember the exact address. I do remember that they had daily specials that were quite reasonable, around 8-10 pounds.

Thanks everyone for these suggestions! Yes, I did want a traditional English meal. (I think all of us would be too homesick if we sat down to a turkeyfest.) I have Fodor's, The London Guide and Let's Go but I have always had so - so luck with their restaurant picks in the past - Fodor's by the way was the best of the bunch.

I reread that post from XXXX four times and still don't get it. Could someone explain why you can't find a traditional UK meal on a regular day in the UK? I suppose he'd also say you couldn't find a traditional American Meal in the US on Boxing Day because it isn't an American holiday? This is the most ridiculous comment I've ever read on this forum!

Patrick or anyone else: could you give the location of the restaurant "Belgo" menitoned above. And any other information about it. It sounds interesting. Thanks

Ann -<BR><BR>The branch of Belgo that's most convenient for tourists is on Earlham Street, a block or two north of the Covent Garden tube station. (There's another one near the Camden market, and I think they just opened a third.) Belgo specializes in mussels, fries, and beer - lots and lots of different kinds of beer! They also have a few other dishes, for non-mussel eaters. I think that the "pay the time" special that Patrick refers to offers a choice of mussels or two other dishes (maybe sausage or chicken), each with a beer (a Hoegarten(?sp)) or a soft drink, and ice cream. There are other dishes, and different preparations of mussels, at "normal" prices - still reasonable, but a bit higher.

This isn't a traditional UK dinner, but for cheap eats, the Churchill Arms pub on Kensington Church Street had really good Pad Thai.

Actually I ate noodles at Wagamama's for Thanksgiving in London 2 years ago...

You've already received most of the info you asked regarding Belgo. I've only been to the one on Earlham, but have been going for a number of years now, only about 3 blocks from "our" flat in Covent Garden. Originally the waiters all wore monk's robes complete with hoods, but every year those costumes seem to become less and less a costume. This year it was just sort of a short apron/robe thing. For years I only did mussels. With recent problems of gout, I've tried restricting those wonderful things, and this year became addicted to Belgo's roasted chicken, topped with a delicious mushroom sauce.<BR>You still enter that basement location by going down in a big industrial elevator. And you are provided entertainment by watching the looks on people's faces when they enter the huge unisex restroom and try to find how to get water out of the giant round sink in the middle.<BR><BR>By the way, there is also a new Wagamama's in Covent Garden, very close to Leicester Square, but can't provide you with the exact address.

I hardly think you should be offering Oriel as a place for cheap eating. Unless they are from NYC they are going to balk at the price of a sandwich in Pret a Minger (even if they are from NYC they will too) or the price of a burger in MaccyD's.<BR><BR>If you want to eat really cheaply you can eat in The Stockpot (there is one near Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge and one on Old Compton St in Soho and one on the Kings Road in Chelsea). Also ChinaTown can be very cheap.<BR><BR>There is a book published by Time Out called Cheap Eats in London - i.e meals for under &pound;5 (US$8-9). You can buy it at major bookstores.

Dear Ms Kittridge,<BR><BR>To the e mail copy of this message I am attaching a note I keep on disc on pub meals and on other cheap meals in London. I am afraid I am no help on turkey. <BR><BR>Welcome to London<BR><BR>Ben Haines

Barb, you're right about tourist guides often not being the best indicators for restaurants (The Eyewitness choices in the London Guide are particularly awful).<BR><BR>By far the best restaurants guide if Harden's, and as luck would have it, they do a cheap eats book:<BR><BR>http://www.hardens.com/guides/guides.htm<BR><BR>I've got it, and it's great not only for cheap restaurants, but how to eat cheaply at some of the more expensive places.<BR><BR>I've said it before, but as someone who eats out about 3 times a week in London, I don't go anywhere unless Harden's has given it the nod. They're brutally honest.

A great (US) Thanksgiving Dinner on our Thanksgiving Day, done in the British style, was offered last year in the Mayfair InterContinental Hotel (near the Green Park tube station).<BR><BR>No guarantees they will do it again, but it's worth checking.